Surrounded by hundreds of miles of tinder-dry forest, Fort McMurray, Alberta seemed to ignite in an instant when wildfires overtook the oil-producing Canadian city earlier this week.

As the 88,000 residents fled in their vehicles, in many cases with just the shirts on their back, dashcams captured their flight towards safety.

It’s harrowing stuff, especially when you consider there’s only one highway leading into the city — an artery that quickly turned into a parking lot as flames encroached on both sides. Amazingly, no lives were lost in the fast-moving disaster.

Climate change predictions never forecast an end to cold weather in winter or every summer being more extreme than the next. You’re an educated professional, you should understand about spatial variability and short-term variation within longer trends.

SCE to AUX – the trend is to more wildfires since winters are trending to be warmer and drier. Spring and summer also have been trending towards drier weather.As of April 1st 2016 we have had 203 wildfires. Experts say this is unusual.

I met an old trapper guide/outfitter who has lived in a remote Northern part of BC for the majority of his life. He has kept a weather diary and he is a proponent of climate change. This is a fellow with limited access to mass media and Al Gore.

Mountain pine beetle is an epidemic in BC pine forests. Warmer winters are one of the main culprits. We have not had enough early cold weather to kill off these insects before their “anti-freeze” kicks in. We can share direct blame beyond climate change due to “managed” forests and wildfire abatement.

I personally do not recall a recent winter with -45C weather. As a child I frequently recall such weather. Our local town has routinely gone over-budget on road maintenance because winters NOW have frequent freeze/thaw cycles that tear up roads.

Inside, you are one of the reasons why the global warming issue is such a nightmare to discuss, because apparently you feel that in order to accept climate change science you must have a liberal agenda aimed at killing the internal combustion engine.

Try divorcing the science from the political agendas and ramifications. It is still intellectually honest to hold the position that human activity is a major driver in observed warming, but to believe the economic ramifications of aggressive reductions in carbon emissions are too severe.

highdesertcat – Once again you show your true colours. 30 – Mile fetch raises a valid point. You even say we are addicted to oil. Which is worse – depriving an addict or harm reduction?

There is a reason why I mentioned Galileo and “the earth is flat” crowd.

You are saying that if you believe the earth to be flat then anyone who supports the fact that it is round is just impinging upon your right to believe something different.

“That’s like Muslim terrorists killing Christians and Jews because they do not share the same faith, or worship the same God.”

Judaism, Christianity, and Muslim religions are all monotheistic and share a common ancestry through Abraham.

” Jesus, is considered to be the penultimate prophet and messenger of God and al-Masih (the Messiah) in Islam who was sent to guide the Children of Israel (banī isrā’īl) with a new scripture, al-Injīl (the Gospel).The belief that Jesus is a prophet is required in Islam. This is reflected in the fact that he is clearly a significant figure in the Quran, appearing in 93 ayaat (or verses) with various titles attached, with Moses appearing 136 times and Abraham 69 times.”

Looks like your beliefs must get hammered by facts on an all to frequent basis.

I’ve already been through the Global Cooling panic that predicted that this planet would be a frozen iceball before the year 2000. We all know how that prediction turned out.

How could such eminent and learned scientists be so wrong? They relied on faulty data and drew faulty conclusions. And yes, they all had an agenda to shape the world according to their visions of the global future.

Ditto, this global warming crap. I’m not the only one who doesn’t buy this eco tree-fornicating philosophy.

Regardless of your procrastination on religious faith, it really is Muslim terrorists who you so vigorously defend, that are causing such turmoil in so many places around the world. It ain’t the Christians. And it ain ‘t the Jews.

I’m fine with what you choose to believe. Just don’t try to win over the non-believers.

When you bring your uber left wing agenda to a public forum, you’re gonna get flak because not everyone is on board with your analysis of the world.

“That’s like Muslim terrorists killing Christians and Jews because they do not share the same faith, or worship the same God.”

That’s what you got out of it? Complete f*ing bullsh*t, HDC, your hyperbole is off the charts on that one.

And your reading comprehension skills are apparently poor. I’m not forcing my “beliefs on global warming” on anyone, I’m stating you can accept the science without accepting the advocacy that often accompanies it.

30-mile fetch, I accepted the “science” of global cooling. I was young and impressionable then. Were those scientists ever wrong!

BTW, my comment was not a criticism of your prior comment. I should have written, “But global warming peddlers should not lay their beliefs of global warming or whatever on those that do not share it.”

I do not share it. And I’m not the lone ranger in this either.

It’s just another ploy by uber-left liberal, tree-hugging, eco-scientists with an agenda, to shape the world into their vision for the planet.

@HDC – I’m not surprised that you are labelling it ideology of the left. That is always easier to do. Lump someone or something into an opposing camp and that conveniently renders any comments or evidence from that side worthless. It also serves to dehumanize the opposition.

Isn’t that a ploy of the Daesh?

Oh and on global cooling, that had very little support from the scientific community. The media was mostly to blame on that one.

“Global cooling was a conjecture during the 1970s of imminent cooling of the Earth’s surface and atmosphere culminating in a period of extensive glaciation. This hypothesis had little support in the scientific community, but gained temporary popular attention due to a combination of a slight downward trend of temperatures from the 1940s to the early 1970s and press reports that did not accurately reflect the full scope of the scientific climate literature, which showed a larger and faster-growing body of literature projecting future warming due to greenhouse gas emissions. The current scientific opinion on climate change is that the Earth has not durably cooled, but underwent global warming throughout the 20th century.”

“Looks like your beliefs must get hammered by facts on an all too frequent basis.”

Global cooling was unsupported by the majority of the scientific community.

There have been studies done on the number of scientists supporting global warming aka climate change. The lowest number was 91% and another at 93%. There are 4 studies showing 97% consensus and one at 100%.

” A Skeptical Science peer-reviewed survey of all (over 12,000) peer-reviewed abstracts on the subject ‘global climate change’ and ‘global warming’ published between 1991 and 2011 (Cook et al. 2013) found that over 97% of the papers taking a position on the subject agreed with the consensus position that humans are causing global warming. In a second phase of the project, the scientist authors were emailed and rated over 2,000 of their own papers. Once again, over 97% of the papers taking a position on the cause of global warming agreed that humans are causing it.”

” Most striking is the divide between expert climate scientists (97.4%) and the general public (58%). The paper concludes:

“It seems that the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes. The challenge, rather, appears to be how to effectively communicate this fact to policy makers and to a public that continues to mistakenly perceive debate among scientists.”

“Most striking is the divide between expert climate scientists (97.4%) and the general public (58%).”

To quote you once again,”There are plenty of reputable scientists who disagree with the concept of global warming. I choose to side with them.”

Whether it was arson, an out of control camp fire or a lightning strike is not known but that would only be the spark.

The fire is fueled by forests drying out in the midst of record-setting 85F heat and lack of rain, in April. With high winds added to the cocktail, it grew much faster and larger than a regular wildfire.

Keep in mind that Ft McMurray is located further north than some of the southern reaches of Alaska.

It hasn’t been proven but it is highly unlikely that it was deliberate. People are poor assessors of risk and do a lot of really stupid things. Most wildfires are caused by man’s careless actions. Case in point; in BC as of April first we had 203 wildfires of which 199 were caused by people.

Climate change is a huge contributor. In my region we had little snow and a very warm early spring. We have had some large wildfires in the far North of the province in April. That is highly unusual because most areas traditionally would still have some snow pack at lower elevations.

@Jagboi – nature’s cycles are getting stronger and more violent.
When I was a child I rarely ever noticed strong winds. There was always a predictable period in the fall where it was more windy. I now tend to notice more wind especially with the passing of weather systems.
Same can be said for thunder storms. That was always just a summer time phenomenon. We’ve had thunderstorms in the middle of winter and rain storms. That is not normal.

Easy, now. You know that’s not true. What data is there that proves “first p0st” is indicative of loneliness? And why does it matter so much to you who talks first that you felt obligated to point it out?

It was interesting to observe the vehicles in the exodus from Fort Mac. Certainly the preponderance of pickups was expected, but there were more compacts than I would have thought. And one 4th generation Firebird. Someone’s prized possession? I wonder how many vehicles were left behind?

…I admire these people keeping calm (mostly). I’m not sure I wouldn’t have panicked in that situation. Pretty terrifying….

You would be surprised at how calm people can be. On 9/11 I was part of a massive crowd that hopped into the street and ran in a rather orderly fashion with a massive cloud of dust rapidly overtaking us. It was a muted kind of panic – we knew we had to move and move fast, but nobody trampled on anybody and those who struggled were often offered help. Frankly it helped restore my faith in people. All while the idea that I was in a Bruce Willis movie kept running through my head…

This reminds me a lot of the horrific fires near Melbourne, Australia back in 2009. Those fires claimed over 300 lives and destroyed entire towns.

In the chaos of the mass exodus, people would crash into each other due to the limited visibility from the smoke and panic

One of the most gruesome situations were cars lined up like this, and the approaching fire and heat would melt the tires, leaving the cars stranded. Dozens of people were lost as their cars were disabled and eventually swallowed up by the flames.

Despite the loss of their homes, these folks in Alberta were very fortunate to escape unscathed

@festiboi – Sorry if I gave the impression that I was challenging your statement.

I was adding the fact that no one had died yet from this fire.

I’m not familiar with the dynamics of Australia’s brush fires. They might travel faster than a forest fire which could make it more likely for people to get caught.

BC and Alberta have well developed wildfire response infrastructure in place. I’d like to think that was a contributor to preventing death as opposed to blind luck.

A fire of this size becomes its own monster. It creates its own winds and IIRC those can be hurricane velocity. Embers and even larger chunks of burning material can be shot into the air for kilometers away from the fire.
Standard procedure is to create fireguards and light backfires to burn back forest to the fire front to consume its fuel. You then control escapes and hotspots. The end goal is to let it burn itself out and then go in and mop up.

This fire is too big for that to work effectively. All one can do is try to mitigate damage and hope the weather cooperates.

All of the Eucalyptus trees don’t help a eucalyptus forest tends to promote fire because of the volatile and highly combustible oils produced by the leaves, as well as the production of large amounts of litter which is high in phenolics, preventing its breakdown by fungi and thus accumulates as large amounts of dry, combustible fuel. Consequently, dense eucalypt plantings may be subject to catastrophic firestorms.

It’s probably not a nice way to look at things, but insurance is going to bail out a LOT of people that were upside-down on their homes/cars…

Over the last year I’ve dealt with a lot of people in Northern Alberta who went from boom to bust and couldn’t afford their cars and toys. Anyone who was able to keep it together up until last week lucked out about as much as you can in this situation.

One of my colleagues has family there. A few days ago they were scattered and not together. So far, their home has been spared.Truly worrisome. We have friends that work in the tar-sands. They are all “commuters” and made it out fine. My wife offered assistance to people as well even though we are a long distance away from Fort Mac.

Oil sands. There is no tar in the Northern Alberta sand. Just crude oil/bitumen. We can help Fort Mac recover fully by clarifying to the world that the “heavy” oil from the oil sands is not very different from the heavy goo that Venezuela and others produce.

“Tar” may be popular because lots of steam (energy) is needed to separate the “oil” from the sand, which is why it’s considered a very “carbon intensive” method of oil extraction.

Despite the short-term economic benefits, the lasting scar on the landscape is undeniable. The effects on the climate are, however, subject to endless debate… Hopefully, the next generations will see the folly of this and respond before the creeping disaster becomes irreversible.

I know a few people in Edmonton who would normally be working in the Mac at this time of year. Interestingly, all of them were laid off last year and didn’t experience the drama of what the local residents are going through.

John – every disaster preparedness expert states that one should be ready to evacuate/abandon one’s home and be prepared to survive unaided for at least 3 days.
I don’t have “bug out” bags per se but I like to be organized so my camping gear is in a large tote bin and a couple of duffel bags. I can have my truck loaded and even get my 12 ft. aluminum boat loaded and be out the driveway in less than 30 minutes.

@Dougjp – please post source. I am not aware of any deaths directly related to the fire. There was a car crash with a transport truck where 2 people were killed but it wasn’t along a stretch of road with active fire along side it.

This is horrible .
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Some years ago I was in Arizona when this same thing occurred and we skedaddled A.S.A.P. , I nearly crapped my self thinking of the poorly maintained truck (not mine) I was riding in and what I’d do if it clattered to a stop in the middle of a forest fire .
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It’s now 6PM on 5.7 and the news still says no deaths , it’s a miracle .
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-Nate

It would be interesting to know how the aluminum-bodied Ford pickups fared, if any of them were among the many abandoned vehicles. I saw one shot of a burned out pickup with melted alloy rims.

Regarding the global cooling event of the 70’s, I’d like to reinforce that there was a bit of substance to it but it was a non-event in the overall trends. You cannot find any proof that, for instance, Greenpeace ever cited global cooling.

Meanwhile other enviro concerns such as the holes in the ozone layer and acid rain were valid and were more or less countered by measures resulting from the hoopla. So if anything the record is that such concerns should be heeded.

Deniers like to depict those who warn of global warming as idiots by saying they want to end all use of fossil fuels immediately. Obviously that would be idiotic. In reality the call is for reducing dependence on fossil fuels. But the deniers either are too thick to understand the difference, or their thirst for a brawl overcomes their common sense.